Collected here are more than 50 fascinating case histories of individuals who have claimed to encountered or been saved by a heavenly being. According to Time magazine, 69% of American people believe in angels and 46% feel they have a guardian angel. In fact, people the world over have claimed to have experienced visions of angels. These people are not crazy new-age loonies, but ordinary individuals from all walks of life, from professionals to prisoners to children.

Emma Heathcote-James has analysed over 800 such accounts for her PhD into Contemporary Experiences of Angels. Hundreds of people have claimed to have experienced visions of angels. These people are not crazy new-aged loonies, but ordinary people from all walks of life, from professionals to prisoners to children. This absorbing book, the product of painstaking research, gets to grips with the issues surrounding these strange manifestations. What do they mean? How do we know that we've seen one? When are they seen? The weight of the evidence may well lead you to adjust the way you have previously considered the supernatural...

For the past three years, Emma Heathcote-James has been researching a phenomenon that has not yet been studied seriously: angelic experiences. A theology student, she has analyzed over 800 such contemporary accounts for this work. Her findings are intriguing, and perhaps groundbreaking. And what she has discovered may well lead you to change the way you previously considered the supernatural.

This book is Wiebe's defense of the claim that a significant form of spiritual experience is found in 'knowing something we have no right to know'. He selects forty-five first-hand accounts from a data-base at the University of Wales to make his case, and, in solidarity with those people, recounts something of his own experience.

Despite widespread skepticism on the matter, a significant number of people today have stories of religious experience—moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions. How should rationally minded people respond? What would your reaction be if someone told you that, one night while sitting alone, she saw through the window a brilliant light descend from the sky until it was so large that it filled the room—and that it radiated a feeling of “pure love”? And what would you say if a friend confided that one night he woke up and could not move, felt he was being suffocated, and sensed an evil spirit in the room? By default in the secular age we are skeptical about anything mysterious or supernatural. More likely than not, most people would respond to the stories above with embarrassment and concern about the person’s grasp of reality, or they would attempt to explain them away through rational or scientific means. But the truth is that religious experiences like these are not as uncommon as they seem—although talking about such experiences often is. This is the case even in a faith tradition such as Christianity, despite the Bible’s numerous accounts of miraculous and mysterious happenings. In Encountering Mystery, noted biblical scholar Dale Allison makes the argument that stories of religious experience are meaningful and not to be marginalized—and that we have a moral prerogative to lovingly engage with such stories regardless of whether we have had similar experiences. Through a close look at phenomena such as moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions, Allison shows how ordinary practices of faith need not be at odds with individual religious experiences. Above all, he enjoins us to be honest about the persistence of religious experience in a secular age and to make space for those who encounter mystery in their lives.

Angels are everywhere, ready to help in times of need. We just have to open ourselves to their healing energies--and this uplifting collection shows how. Drawing on leading expert Chrissie Astell's personal experiences of angelic intervention, along with moving accounts from her readers, course participants, and workshop attendees, Gifts from Angels tells stories of children protected, accidents avoided, and other life-changing miracles. Astell also provides practical visualizations and meditations, along with guidance on guardian angels, archangels, and the life to come.

This book is a study of unusual light phenomena, based on almost 400 unpublished accounts of modern-day encounters with strange lights collected over a period of thirty years, held at the University of Wales, Lampeter. It is an original and perennially topical book that goes beyond existing studies of unusual light phenomena - such as lights encountered during angelic experiences, near-death experiences, 'after death communications' - in a number of ways. It shows, for example, that experiences of unusual, spiritual, religious and paranormal lights are cross-cultural, trans-historical, and are reported widely in the present day: but not necessarily experienced when near to death. It also demonstrates that these experiences share to a remarkable degree a 'common core', showing by drawing on a large number of vivid, unpublished and dramatic testimonies that unusual lights typically manifest at times of crisis, and are overwhelmingly benign and loving, producing 'turning-points' in the lives of experients and typically setting them in new spiritual and creative directions.